Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Detain the Pope?

Going through the bombardment of news reports and opinions that came right after Pope Benedict announced his resignation, you could find many angles to the story. Why did he leave? How could he (the chosen one) leave? Who will be next? A black pope? An Asian pope? A Muslim pope? (I joked with one of my colleagues) and then there was this: Detain the pope. An old article by Christopher Hitchens argues why the pope should be brought to justice for harboring holy men who are accused of pedophelia or some other sex charges.I had hardly heard about the idea of putting the father into the confession box and that there were actual lawsuits pending against some clergies.Why would some people think it’s not fair to bring the holy men under the laws that were made after countless of sacrifices. After all, people have fought, bled, died, facebooked and tweeted for democracies around the world. It’s only fair to treat everyone equally, something God likes.And while the story of all Christian and Jewish holy men facing the music may still be far from over, the story of their Muslim counterparts hasn’t even started. The recent story of a Saudi preacher sexually assaulting and killing his five-year-old daughter and reports of him escaping punishment by paying ‘blood money’, is a chilling reminder of the task ahead.